


Passing the lead

by Subtle_Shenanigans



Series: We play our parts [1]
Category: Balto (Movies), Balto - Fandom
Genre: Background - Freeform, Balto movie rewrite, Bullying, Gen, Illness, Minor Animal Abuse, Nome Alaska, Racing, Sickness, do not repost to another site, half wolf, if turned into a fic Togo will show up, no beta we die like men, sled dogs, some minor character redesign
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:54:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22457560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Subtle_Shenanigans/pseuds/Subtle_Shenanigans
Summary: Sometimes our part is small, and that’s okay.It doesn’t make the journey any less, or the aid less helpful.
Relationships: Balto & Boris, Jenna & Balto, Muk & Luk
Series: We play our parts [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1637029
Comments: 5
Kudos: 5





	Passing the lead

**Author's Note:**

> So. Been wanting to do a Balto fic for a really long time. No promises that I’ll be making a full story, but I may do more one-shots!
> 
> Balto is my favourite animated movie. I don’t know much historically about Balto - or Togo - but I’ll be trying my best while keeping the main base of the movie. Which means some characterization change, but not majorly.
> 
> I’m really tired but I hope this came out okay!

It’s a blizzard, wind whipping the snow and stirring up nothing but white obscurity. He sheilds his eyes with a wing and cranes his neck upwards. But they’re gone.

He missed them.

He slumps and shakes his head. It’s his own fault, really; a young goose like him running off like that? Of course he missed the migration.

He shakes himself down to his tail feathers. “ ‘S cold. Better find shelter,” he clacks his beak, “if I c’n find any.”

He snorts, as his thick, northern accent is stripped away by the wind. He waddles on, feeling ice trickle between his feathers.

He’ll be fine, he’s sure. He’s a goose made of tough stuff.

In that moment his great foot sinks into something softer than the snow, and he lets out a startled honk as a high whine sounds.

It sends him falling over with his wings spread and flapping. “Ye won’t take me alive!!!”

But nothing attacks him. Nothing comes to tear him apart. He eventually shuffled up to see a little gray snout peaking from the snow, and keening.

He sneaks forwards, and then, that’s when he sees the large snowdrift next to him, towering. But it’s not a snow drift, and he inches closer.   
  
It’s the dead body of some great, white animal, freezing and being buried by snow. Peeking through the pelt he finds a bullet hole near the throat. Men.

It must have died and left it’s chick here, he realized.

Something stirs in him - something that’s like being in the nest, protective, and warm. Using his beak he carefully digs around the chick’s head, eventually unearthing it. Half-closed eyes watch him and it howls pitifully.

He carefully grabs the fur at the back of its neck and pulls it out. The chick - puppy, is the wolf term, or is it cub? - kicks feebly. It’s already quite a hefty little thing, and the goose struggles to pull it out.

He sets it down and it struggles to crawl closer to him. It’s almost his own size, months old, but weak from cold and hunger.

(He knows, if he digs down, he might find others. But they must be dead by now, if they haven’t struggled like this one.)

(His heart aches.)

He lets the wolf chick curl up to him, and preens it. When it’s warm enough, they’ll travel for shelter, together.

“My name is Boris,” he wheezes down to it. “And I’ll take care of you.”

* * *

_Roughly three years later_

* * *

There was one well, known fact in Nome, Alaska.

Try as you might, you can’t ever chase that wolfdog away for good.

Balto, as the town had taken to calling him, was almost big as the few malamutes, with hulking paws and a gray-brown coat. Though rugged with wolf-yellow eyes, he acted as docile as the soft southern dogs that had been brought there. There was still a fear he would turn, and along with that fear that they’d never chase him off and would have to shoot him.

Much as they hated the half-breed, they weren’t taken with shooting animals that may or may not legally belong to someone else.

Before ol’ Jeb had died, six months after Balto showed up, he would swear up and down that it was his dog that had gone with the wolves. “My sleddie,” (he had refused to name the dog, while he had brought him to haul any yellow he found), “my sleddie, now there was a darn fine dog. Big ol’ brownish husky. Lookit that there Balto and tell me that ain’t ‘is pup.”

The rest of the town stopped arguing early on. Let ol’ Jeb try to tame it if he wants. None of them wanted it.

But Balto was wily, and wary, since ol’ Jeb went after him with a rope. The only humans he didn’t bat an eyelash at were the children in town, for they were endlessly fascinated but kind.

Ol’ Jeb swore out the wolfdog but always tried again. Until he passed away.

So in a way the town thought of him as Jeb’s, and weren’t too fond of the idea of shooting him unless they must.

That didn’t stop them from letting the dogs at him. The dogs - specifically the thorough breed sled dogs and the single, sleepy Saint Bernard - had significant distrust of Balto and his heritage. The worst in particular was Steel, a well-built Malamute of onyx and snow. He liked to parade around town, until, in fine humor, he caught Balto slinking around and proceed to chase him off, teeth trying to sink into his hindquarters.

But Balto, though large, was scrawny with big paws, and wily enough to not just outrun, but dodge Steel. He made the malamute look like a fool, and that in turn caused Steel to have a seething hatred of Balto.

And Balto was not to be kept from the town, for he had his own fascination, with that of the sled dogs and their races. It called to him, and even if the others hated him, he wasn’t to be kept away.

After all, the toil for trace and trail ran in his blood, like that of his father before him.

Not every dog or person hated him, at least. Jenna, a pretty red and white husky, and her humans had moved to Alaska a year and a half after Balto had shown up. And while wary, the dog and her girl shared a curiosity about the mutt.

Balto found himself fond of them, and even the adults, but still kept his distance.

So it was in Nome, Alaska. Balto showed up, slunk around and sometimes caused mischief, before slinking back to his own home, a crashed ship miles from the town.

The wolfdog was hated but tolerated.


End file.
